Foreseeing the adverse impact of the deal, editors and journalists from Taiwan Next Media Group have been demonstrating for editorial independence from the future management, while Taiwanese students have gone on an Anti-Want Want campaign over the past two weeks, to warn the public against the adverse effect of media monopoly.

Since November 26, 2012, students started gathering outside the Executive Yuan,demanding [zh] the legislation for Media antimonopoly law, calling for editorial independence agreement within media organizations and against the deal between Next Media Ltd and Want Want China Times. Despite the cold weather and rain, many students stayed overnight and the next day, the students, together with a number of journalism professors and media workers, held a press conference at the protest venue.

Several confrontations between the police and the students took place as the head of Executive Yuan failed to show up and answer their demands; the student activists then decided to hold another gathering on November 29, 2012 outside the Fair Trade Commission. Meanwhile, overseas Taiwanese students have been expressing their support by uploading photos with the following slogans [zh]:

Collage of support photos from Taiwanese students in Europe. Photo from Facebook Page: Taiwan EU Watch. Non Commercial Use.

Back home, students from eastern and southern part of Taiwan travelled to Taipei to join the November 29 protest. Wang Weilong （黃瑋隆）was among one these students and he made a video to record his feelings and journey:

It turned out that more than 30 universities [zh] had student representatives in the protest and they marched together from the Executive Yuan to the Legislative Yuan so as to put pressure on their representatives to follow up the legislation of anti-media monopoly law.

In reaction to the student protest actions, the head of the Taiwan Education Bureau issued a letter on November 30, 2012 asking various universities’ student affairs offices to pay attention to their students’ health and hand in the list of students who had participated in the protest. The document leaked out and outraged the students who issued a statement [zh] condemning the Education Bureau for being hypocritical in showing their care:

We appeal to the government not to undermine the foundations of democracy and freedom in Taiwan anymore. We were faced with riot police armed with batons and shields outside Executive Yuan, barricades and iron net outside the Fair Trade Commission. Back to school campus, we have to be cared for by school officers. We want to tell the head of Education Bureau, Chiang Wei-Ling, “Chief, we have a dream, we want to defend Taiwan's democracy and freedom. We are very healthy, but the Education Bureau is sick. It tries to repress the students’ movement. This country is sick, its foundation for freedom has been eroded away.”